LANGUAGE AND BRAIN DISEASE. 781 



tory as to warrant the abandonment of the more primitive sign- 

 language. And it is a fact of great significance that those deaf- 

 mutes who have once been able to hear, though the subsequent 

 deafness was total, have a great advantage over those deaf from 

 birth, not only in learning to read and speak, but in general men- 

 tal capacity. 



We are now ready to apply our facts to the practical question 

 of how best to learn another language than our own. One meth- 

 od, still prevalent in schools and colleges, attempts to extract the 

 language almost by sheer force of memory from grammar and 

 dictionary. It has never been claimed that by this method the 

 ability to converse could be acquired, but it has been generally 

 assumed that by it the pupil could at least learn to read, and per- 

 haps, if diligent, to write to advantage. Yet, even for this pur- 

 pose alone, the grammatical method must be a failure in so far as 

 it neglects to train the pupil to a quick perception and a ready 

 utterance of the sounds of the language, for we have seen that the 

 auditory and motor speech centers do an essential part of the work 

 in reading and in writing. Even if direct associations from the 

 visual center may be cultivated, as in the case of deaf-mutes, why, 

 instead of an easy and natural method, choose an unnatural and 

 difficult one that leads to poor results ? If it should be claimed 

 that the grammatical method, without special attention to pro- 

 nunciation, does enable pupils to read, and read well, in spite of 

 any theorizing on the subject, then it must be said without hesi- 

 tation that the claim is not warranted by facts. The remarkable 

 unanimity with which the vast majority of our college graduates 

 neglect to read the ancient authors is a very significant thing. It 

 seems that they are not really able to read the Greek and Latin 

 writers, but only to make a translation, and that they find no 

 sufficient reward for this slow and irksome process. 



As applied to the modern languages, the grammatical method 

 is, even at its worst, supplemented by considerable exercise in 

 pronunciation, and the ability to read with pleasure and profit is 

 attained in a correspondingly higher degree. Yet, in estimating 

 this ability, there is much room for self-deception. The pupil, 

 after memorizing inflections and rules of arrangement, begins, 

 with the constant use of the dictionary, to read, or rather, at first, 

 to make a translation. Persevering, he finds that he needs the 

 dictionary less and less, and perhaps he begins to understand 

 without the use of English equivalents. Now, let us suppose that 

 he has reached that point where he is able to read page after page 

 without any absolute necessity of referring to the dictionary, or 

 even of calling up an English word. Has he, as he is apt fondly 

 to imagine, mastered the language as far as reading it is con- 

 cerned ? Not at all. He has made a respectable and useful acqui- 



